On March 23th 1748 archeologists started the excavation of Pompeii, a city that had been violently buried by Mount Vesuvius in an eruption that happened nearly 1600 years ago. Not knowing that the volcano was still active, the people of Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Stabie settled around the volcano. Despite the frequent earthquakes in the final days before the eruption, no one had any idea that the volcano was going to erupt. When the mountain finally exploded on August 24th 79 ad., it s sent thousands of tons of dust, ash, pumice, and rock up into the air, most of the people in the towns stared in awe instead of
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running for cover. When the volcanic material started to rain down upon Pompeii, the people started to panic, deciding to either escape or take shelter in the buildings that were being crushed under the weight of the rocks. For those who chose not to leave the city they were buried under the thick layer of ash that came drifting down . Those who attempted escape at this point would not be successful, for shortly after this the final pyroclastic surge washed over the city, burying what ever was still uncovered and the surrounding land in 30 feet of volcanic mud. Those who were covered with the mud were preserved in the position they were in, allowing archeologists to make plaster casts of them. The cities around the volcano were covered in ash and mud from the mountain top that was thrown down with the explosion. The only known recorded
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eye witness account of the eruption was written by a scribe Pliney the Younger who was across the sea watching the event.
Sources-
Pompeii: Stories from an Eruption. Field Museum. 4 December 2008 <http://www.fieldmuseum.org/pompeii/pompeii_3.asp>
Pompeii. MSNU. 4 December 2008 <http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/archaeology/sites/europe/pompeii.html>
Pompeii: Portents of Disaster. BBC. 3 December 2008 <http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/romans/Pompeii_portents_print.html>
Bunson, Mathew. "Vesuvius." Encyclopedia of the Roman Empire. Library of Congress, 1994.
Multon, Carrol. "Vesuvius". Ancient Greece and Rome. ed. Carroll Multon. Volume 4. Charles Sribner's Sons, 1998.